


Purple Journals

by Not_An_Alien



Series: Voltron Shorts [10]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Awkward Lance (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cuban Lance (Voltron), Diary/Journal, Emo Keith (Voltron), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gay Keith (Voltron), Korean Keith (Voltron), M/M, Orphan Keith (Voltron), So it will be, Soulmate journals, Soulmates, That is a thing I made up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-17 18:50:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18104339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_An_Alien/pseuds/Not_An_Alien
Summary: Soulmate journals.Those were a thing everyone knew about. Whenever a kid is born, their family is given the child's soulmate journal, which their family then gives to them when the child turns thirteen.Lance’s journal was blue. He remembered anticipating his thirteenth birthday so he could get his hands on the blue journal that sat in one of his mother’s desk drawers. As soon as his parents handed it to him once the day came, he raced back to his room, grabbed the first pen he could find, and wrote his first ever note to his soulmate.





	1. Blue Journal

**Author's Note:**

> I literally wrote this instead of my history essay so I hope y'all enjoy it.

Soulmate journals.

Those were a thing everyone knew about. Whenever a kid is born, their family is given the child's soulmate journal, which their family then gives to them when the child turns thirteen. People don't know much about soulmate journals except that they were discovered in the Middle Ages whenever a child was presented with their first journal and they were able to use it to communicate with someone that was later seen to be their ideal life partner. Ever since, whenever a child was born, the hospital would present them with a standard 100-page journal of varying colors that they would use to contact their soulmate when they were older.

Lance’s journal was blue. He remembered anticipating his thirteenth birthday so he could get his hands on the blue journal that sat in one of his mother’s desk drawers. As soon as his parents handed it to him once the day came, he raced back to his room, grabbed the first pen he could find, and wrote his first ever note to his soulmate.

_Hello, soulmate. The name’s Blue._

The thing about soulmate journals was that you couldn’t say things about yourself that would give away your identity, such as name, location, and phone numbers. If you tried, it wouldn’t appear in your soulmate’s journal, and you would have just wasted space in your journal. So Lance decided that it would be best if he gave himself a code name that his soulmate could use.

Lance waited a few minutes, but his soulmate never responded. Guessing that his soulmate just hadn’t noticed that he wrote anything in there, Lance decided to just go to bed and check again tomorrow.

However, when he woke up the next morning, there still wasn’t a reply. He went to his mother about it and she just replied with, “Well maybe they just haven’t turned thirteen yet.” Lance figured that that was a good point and decided not to worry too much about it.

Two months later and he still hadn’t received a reply. Growing worried, he picked up a pen and wrote another note.

_Okay, soulmate. So you either haven’t turned thirteen yet or you’re ignoring me. I really hope it’s not the ladder. That would suck._

After writing that, he immediately wacked himself in the head. “Think of your soulmate, Lance!” He told himself. “That was pretty passively rude.”

_I mean, if you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine, but could you at least let me know if you don’t? I don’t want to keep waiting for something that’s never going to come._

Lance took a moment to imagine what his soulmate would probably think if they had just turned thirteen and been given their journal only to find Lance’s semi-emotional spiel. That would be embarrassing, but what’s done is done. No going back now.

Over the next few years, Lance found himself going back to the journal to write another note. Sometimes stating random facts about himself, like how his favorite animal is the shark and one time when he was seven, he managed to stick twelve jellybeans up his nose (not that he was proud of that now, but he was then), and sometimes he would write another note regarding his soulmate’s absence. His journal eventually became more of a diary to him than a way to communicate with his soulmate.

If he were to be honest, he really wished his soulmate would just hurry up and respond already, but he knew that he probably didn’t have any choice but to be patient and wait for his soulmate to respond when they were ready even if it did hurt to see all his peers happily write to their soulmates in the halls or cafeteria at school. Even his best friend, Hunk, was constantly writing with his soulmate who had elected to call herself Diamond.

“So, like, are they ignoring me, or are they just really young?” Lance asked one day when he was fourteen.

“Lance, for the millionth time, they’re probably just young. It’s very hard to ignore you,” Pidge repeated before returning to whatever she was doing on her laptop.

Lance sighed dramatically. “You just wouldn’t understand because you don’t have your journal yet.”

The twelve-year-old looked up at him with irritation. “I’m getting it next month. Now shush. I need to get this done and you keep distracting me. My teacher will kill me if it’s not done by midnight.”

Lance wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve this abuse.

It wasn’t until the Christmas at fifteen that he absently did his daily journal check to see that there was writing in there that wasn’t his.

**Hey, Blue. I’m Red.**

Lance almost fainted on the spot. He immediately grabbed the journal and ran down the stairs yelling, “They responded!” at the top of his lungs.

He was a bit excited.

He showed the writing, likely written in an old black pen, to his mom because who else would you show it to?

“What do I do now, Mama?” He asked her after she finished telling him how happy she was for him.

“Now you respond, you stupid boy!” His mother snapped. “What are you still doing here? Go!”

Smiling, Lance ran back upstairs to his room and grabbed the blue pen he usually used for writing in his journal and scribbled his response.

_It’s great to finally meet you! Did you just get your journal today?_

It didn’t take long for a reply to show up on the page. It was one thing to find words scribbled on the page, but it was a completely different thing to watch as his soulmate write on the paper that had had nothing but his own scribbles for years.

**Yeah**

Truly momentous.

_So were you like, born on Christmas or something?_

**Oh no. My birthday is October 23rd**

What?

His soulmate had to have had their journal for at least two months now. So why were they just now responding to Lance now?

Lance was about to write a response when his soulmate cut him off.

**I just got my journal today though**

_Why didn’t you get it on your thirteenth birthday?_

**It’s a long story**

_If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?_

**16 You?**

His soulmate was older than him. This was unacceptable.

_15 My birthday is July 28 btw_

Lance was happy that he was finally able to talk to his soulmate (even if they didn’t really talk that much), but he couldn’t help but feel like the last few years had been wasted and all because for some reason, his soulmate hadn’t been given their journal. Lance guessed that he would just have to be an amazing soulmate to make up for the years of waiting.

_So what’s your favorite animal? I don’t know if you read my other notes but mine is a shark_

**I like hippos**

_Hippos????_

**Something wrong with that?**

Great job, Lance. You offended them.

_No! It’s just that that wasn’t what I had been expecting_

**What did you think I’d like?**

_Idk dogs? I don’t really know much about you rn_

_Guess we’ll just have to change that huh? ;)_

**What is that?**

_What is what?_

**;)**

_...a winky face?_

**Is that what it’s called?**

_You’ve seriously never seen a winky face?????_

**I don’t do this often.**

_Well then I guess I’ll just have to educate you if we’re going to keep talking_

_I am especially fond of the lenny face_

**Lenny face?**

_Lenny face._

_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_

**I hate that.**

_You wound me, Red_

_Come on show me your best lenny face_

_I know you can (☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞_

**I don’t want to.**

_Pleeeeeease?_

**Fine.**

**( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)**

**There.**

_Ok yours just looks angry_

**It represents my soul.**

Lance couldn’t help but laugh out loud at that. He had always imagined what it would be like to talk to his soulmate, but in all honesty, it was much better than he’d imagined. His soulmate seemed like a genuinely enjoyable person to be around. God, he couldn’t wait to meet them.

~

There was a new kid at school.

It was the beginning of his senior year, almost two years since he’d started talking to his soulmate. He’d found out that his soulmate was a boy (and he was bi as hell so he was fine with that), his soulmate really liked knives (he drew them in the journal a lot), and he was totally an emo (no matter how much he denied it). The two of them practically had daily conversations. Lance taught Red more emojis, Lance copying them off the internet and Red attempting to copy what Lance had drawn, and Red did eventually tell him why he hadn’t had his journal for so long and about his hesitance to even contact him in the first place. Lance told him things, too. He told him about his insecurities and how he felt like he wasn’t doing anything that showed that he could be good enough, and every time he did, Red would give him random compliments until he felt better. Apparently, comforting wasn’t really thing, but Lance had to disagree. He really liked that about his soulmate. He also noticed as time passed, his feelings for the boy on the other side of his journal were changing. Pretty much, over the past couple years, Lance had fallen totally, utterly in love with Red.

But yeah, there was a new kid, and Lance had him in three classes. The guy was clearly incredibly emo, and it was irritating. He always sat in the back of the class and just… stared out the window, not even paying the slightest bit of attention to the lesson (Lance wasn’t either, but that wasn’t important.) Besides, the only person who could be both emo and endearing was Red. Also, the new kid had a mullet. Who had a mullet these days? Lance will tell you who.

_Keith Kogane._

That motherfucker.

Other than the broody new kid, things were pretty normal for Lance. He’d go to school as normal (read: not pay attention to the teacher and glare at Keith the whole time instead), go to lunch with Pidge and Hunk and pass a few notes with Red, then go home and keep talking to Red instead of doing his homework (he could copy off Pidge in the first period study hall they shared (he owed her a lot of peanut butter cookies by this point)).

One day in mid-October, Lance was walking through the halls after school with his journal open watching Red sketch a shark for him on a page that was already covered in a conversation they’d had earlier that day when suddenly, he tripped. He’d like to say that he didn’t fall flat on the tile floor, his journal, still open, skidding ten feet across the floor, but that was what happened.

“ _¡Mierda!_ ” He cursed, quickly crawling forward to grab his journal before turning to see what he tripped on. “Oh.” There, sitting on the floor and holding his nose, was Keith Kogane.

“Shit, I think my nose is bleeding,” Keith muttered, looking up at Lance.

“Why were you sitting in the middle of the hallway?” Lance questioned.

Keith looked annoyed. “One, I’m not in the middle of the hallway, I’m sitting against my locker. Two, there is literally no one else here and you could have easily walked around me.”

Lance scoffed. “Well, I’m sorry that I was busy.”

“Busy doing what?” Keith asked.

“If you must know,” Lance said, standing up so he could look down on Keith, “I was watching my soulmate draw, and let me tell you-” He cut off as he noticed something. On the floor next to Keith was a soulmate journal sitting wide open on a page covered in random notes and a half-drawn shark that looked “Exactly like mine,” Lance muttered.

“What was that?” Keith asked.

“Nothing,” Lance said quickly, shutting his journal. “I’m sorry I ran into you. Have a good evening or whatever.” And before Keith could say anything else, Lance turned and sped out the front door of the school.

~

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Red was actually _Keith Kogane_ , emo extraordinaire. The guy he’d hated ever since his greasy mullet made his way into his school. This was the guy the universe set him up with. This was his _soulmate_.

Opening up his journal again, he saw that there was a new note from Red.

**Sorry I stopped drawing all of a sudden. Some asshole ran over me in the hallway.**

Shit.

_Wow, what a dick._

“I am a dick,” Lance said to himself. He knew he would need to talk to Keith and apologize to him on Monday. He might tell Keith that they’re soulmates, but he felt that if he did tell Keith that, he would only be disappointed. Who wanted an asshole as their life partner?

**Is something wrong? You only use correct punctuation when something’s up. You didn’t even use an emoji.**

_Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine. I just have some things on my mind._

**Like what?**

_It’s nothing important._

**Alright. Well, if you need to talk about it, I’ll be here.**

_I know._

He’s always there.

~

Monday came, and Lance was not ready for what was to come. He’d made sure that he looked presentable so that Keith hopefully wasn’t too repulsed when he approached him. God, he was nervous. He could wait another hundred years and still be scared out of his wits of what was to come.

He arrived at school and spotted Keith sitting in front of his locker again. The halls were more crowded than they had been on Friday, so Lance had to evade several people who walked in the most inconvenient places just to get over to him.

“Uh, hey, Keith,” Lance greeted awkwardly once he had successfully managed to make his way over to the shorter boy.

Keith looked at him weirdly. “Hi?”

“Hi,” Lance repeated, mentally kicking himself for that statement.

“Why are you talking to me?” Keith asked him, standing up so he could face the Cuban.

“Well, I, uh,” Lance stuttered, “I wanted to see if your nose was okay.”

“My nose is fine Lance,” Keith said. “There were only a few drops.”

“That’s good,” Lance stated, still feeling sincerely awkward. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry I ran into you.”

Keith looked at him as if he were a kicked puppy. “It’s fine, Lance. It was an accident. I only slightly blew up on you because you knocked my journal out of my hand while I was drawing.”

“Yes,” Lance said, seeing an opportunity to transition. “I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“Why?” Keith questioned.

“Here,” Lance said, pulling his journal out of his bag and holding it out to Keith. “I want you to read this.”

“Isn’t that private?” Keith asked, taking the journal.

“Yeah, but I still want you to read it,” Lance insisted.

“Okay, then,” Keith said. “If you insist.”

Lance watched as Keith opened the journal and started reading. He was a few pages in by the time Lance saw the realization dawn on his soulmate’s face.

“Oh.”


	2. Red Journal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished my essay so I'm writing this instead of doing my math.

Keith had never seen much of a point in soulmate journals. You write a few notes to a complete stranger and suddenly you have a life partner. Whoop-dee-doo. He didn’t know what happened to his soulmate journal after his father died and he was thrown into foster care, but he does know that when he turned thirteen, he was not handed a 100-page journal with a soulmate attached.

 

And that was fine by him.

 

He just continued on with his life, not giving his soulmate or soulmate journal a thought. At least, he did until one day a few months after he turned sixteen. Christmas day.

 

“Keith, honey, could you come here?” His foster mother, Jenny called him over once all the other kids had finished opening their presents.

 

“Is something wrong?” Keith asked her. He had always liked Jenny. He definitely liked her a lot more than the other foster moms he’d had that year. She was kind to him, which automatically made her better than the others.

 

“Actually no,” Jenny said. “I just have a special present for you this year.” She pulled a small box wrapped in gold paper out from underneath a blanket sitting on the couch next to her and handed it to him. “I found it amongst your father’s belongings that I was given.”

 

Hesitantly, Keith peeled open the golden paper to see what was inside. Once the paper was gone, he saw that hidden underneath was a red 100-page journal that he recognized immediately despite having not seen it before.

 

“Is this-?” He asked.

 

“Your soulmate journal,” Jenny finished for him.

 

“But what if-” He started, but Jenny cut him off, already knowing what he was going to say.

 

“You should at least take the time to say hello,” she advised. “I hope you don’t mind, but I took a look at the first page, and I think your soulmate would really like to hear from you.”

 

Slowly, Keith took the journal upstairs to his room and set it on his desk. He carefully opened the front cover and looked inside, only to see that the front page was covered in random comments from someone writing with a blue pen.

 

_ Hello, soulmate. The name’s Blue. _

 

So his soulmate decided to name himself after a color? How original.

 

_ Okay, soulmate. So you either haven’t turned thirteen yet or you’re ignoring me. I really hope it’s not the ladder. That would suck. _

 

Did his soulmate really think that he’s been ignoring him all these years. He decided to assume that his soulmate had written that after he had turned thirteen, but for how long had his soulmate been writing random notes to himself?

 

_ I mean, if you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine, but could you at least let me know if you don’t? I don’t want to keep waiting for something that’s never going to come. _

 

Okay, damn.

 

Maybe Keith should write back to this dude. Jenny was right. At least about the soulmate wanting to hear from him. Keith scrambled around his room until he found an old, chewed up black pen. “Good enough,” Keith muttered to himself once he’d found it. As long as it could write, he was fine. He opened his journal back up and found a blank space to write his first note to his soulmate.

 

**Hey, Blue. I’m Red.**

 

A few minutes later, Keith looked up from the book he’d started reading to find that his soulmate had already responded.

 

_ It’s great to finally meet you! Did you just get your journal today? _

 

It was written in the same blue pen as all the other notes. Apparently his soulmate was good at keeping track of a single pen. Either that or he just kept buying the same brand.

 

**Yeah.**

 

Keith prided himself on his detailed responses.

 

_ So were you like, born on Christmas or something? _

 

Keith sighed. Of course he would think that. It was tradition, after all.

 

**Oh no. My birthday is October 23rd**

 

**I just got my journal today though**

 

He really hoped his soulmate wouldn’t be pissed or something. Keith knew that he probably would have blown up in the moment, but go back and apologize later. He didn’t usually keep a grudge for more than a few days.

 

_ Why didn’t you get your journal on your thirteenth birthday? _

 

**It’s a long story**

 

Keith knew that his soulmate probably deserved an explanation, but Keith wasn’t sure if he was ready to tell him why yet. He had just started talking to the dude. He couldn’t just out and say “Hey, I’m an orphan with anger issues, and I didn’t actually want to talk to you at first.”

 

Yeah, no.

 

_ If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you? _

 

**16 You?**

 

_ 15 My birthday is July 28 btw _

 

So every note that his soulmate had sent him up to that point had been written after Keith turned thirteen. He just met his soulmate, but he was already making him feel more guilt in a few minutes than the guilt he’d felt for the past three years.

 

Blue immediately changed topics, instead asking Keith about his favorite animal. He’d never thought much of the whole soulmate thing, but he could tell that his soulmate might be fun to talk to. It would be nice having someone to talk to for once.

 

~

 

_ Do you have a penis or a vagina? _

 

**Is this your way of asking if I’m a boy or a girl?**

 

_ Yeah _

 

**What if I were trans and had a penis, but I was still a girl?**

 

_ Why you gotta do this to me, Red? _

 

**I’m your soulmate and it’s my job to call you out on your shit**

 

_ Sorry let me rephrase _

 

_ Are you a dude or a chick? _

 

**I shouldn’t have expected anything better than that.**

 

**I’m a guy.**

 

_ Cool me too _

 

~

 

_ So what do you like to do with your free time? _

 

**Idk I like drawing, I guess.**

 

_ (∩╹□╹∩) Youre an artist????? _

 

**I sketch random things more than creating actual art, but I guess you could say so.**

 

_ Can you draw me something? _

 

**Sure… any requests?**

 

_ My dick ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) _

 

**No.**

 

_ Fine How about a hippo bc theyre your favorite animal? _

 

Keith would never admit it, but he had been smiling as he sketched the large animal in a blank space on the page.

 

~

 

**So how about that weather we’re having?**

 

_ Is that really how youre planning on starting this conversation? _

 

**Idk I’ve never started a conversation with my soulmate before.**

 

_ We have had many conversations you have to have started one _

 

**Look back through them. I haven’t initiated any.**

 

_ omg your right _

 

_ Wait what about that first conversation we had? _

 

**Didn’t you technically start that one three years ago?**

 

_ I guess _

 

_ well then Im proud of you for starting a conversation with me for the first time ＼(★^∀^★)／ _

 

~

 

_ Do you speak any languages other than English? _

 

**My parents were from Korea so I can speak Korean.**

 

_ Thats cool I speak Spanish because my parents are from Cuba _

 

Keith couldn’t help but find a sense of relief when Lance didn’t question what he’d meant by “were.”

 

~

 

Keith eventually had to leave Jenny. He was fairly sad to see her go, but she needed to make more room for other kids and he was getting too old to be taken care of anymore. He got over it quickly, though. 

 

And so, he moved in with the Shirogane’s.

 

Mr and Mrs Shirogane were nice enough. He didn’t see them often because he was normally at school, but if he wasn’t there, he was hidden back in his bedroom that he shared with their son.

 

Takashi Shirogane, aka Shiro, was nicer than his parents. He accepted Keith for who he was, a seventeen-year-old angry gay orphan, immediately. It didn’t take long for Shiro to get Keith to open up to him. He was just that kind of person. Keith secretly thought the guy was a wizard or something. Nobody is that perfect.

 

~

 

_ Do you think pigeons have feelings? _

 

**Of course not**

 

~

 

Because he moved in with the Shirogane’s, he had to go to a new school that fall. It was still two months away, but Keith still wasn’t looking forward to joining a new school his senior year. He had spent two years at the high school by Jenny’s after all. Now he would be faced with a new crowd of students to hate him.

 

Great.

 

~

 

_ and thats why you should never trust a pony _

 

**That was an interesting story.**

 

_ I’m sure you were moved by my tragic experience _

 

**How would you falling off of a pony ride at a fair be moving?**

 

_ （ｉДｉ） Why must you hurt me this way? _

 

**You’re so dramatic.**

 

_ You love it _

 

**No.**

 

_ You absolutely do _

 

**I absolutely do not.**

 

_ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) _

 

**Stop.**

 

_ ( ͡° ʖ̯ ͡°) _

 

**Why are you like this?**

 

_ You love me _

 

The last statement got Keith thinking. Did he love his soulmate? That was an interesting concept.

 

~

 

Shiro had a friend named Matt.

 

He was a weird dude.

 

He was also incredibly nosy. Keith found this out the hard way when Matt came out of his and Shiro’s room holding an incredibly familiar book.

 

“Keith,” he said, with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Is this your soulmate journal?”

 

Shit.

 

“No,” he quickly lied.

 

“So you won’t mind if I draw a dick in it?” Matt asked, holding up an orange pen he’d pulled out of his pocket.

 

Shit.

 

“Don’t you dare,” he said, but it was too late. Matt was sprinting away, journal and pen in hand, with Keith on his heels. He raced into the bathroom and closed and locked the door behind him, leaving Keith to bang on the door from the other side, demanding that he not draw a dick in his journal.

 

Eventually, Matt opened the door, holding up Keith’s now opened journal to reveal a dick drawn in orange ink. Keith snatched the journal from a laughing Matt’s hand and took it back to his room. By the time he got there, though, Blue had already responded.

 

_ Is this your way of telling me you like dick? Bc I got dick ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°) _

 

Christ.

 

~

 

_ You know, you never told me why you didn’t get your journal when you were supposed to. _

 

And there it was. The topic that Keith was afraid to bring up ever since he’d started talking to his soulmate a year and a half earlier. He guessed that it was either now or never.

 

**I didn’t get it because my foster parents at the time didn’t bother giving it to me.**

 

And just like that, the truth was out. Keith slammed his journal shut and put it on his bookshelf, deciding that he wouldn’t wait to read Blue’s response. Instead, he flopped down in his bed and fell asleep.

 

When he woke up the next morning, he pulled the journal back off the shelf and opened it to the most recent page where he’d told Blue that he was an orphan. On the page, there were several words written in blue ink that Keith had yet to read.

 

_ God what assholes _

 

That was anticlimactic. He then decided to keep reading.

 

_ I’m guessing by the fact that you haven’t yet responded that you feel bad about the whole orphan thing. I don’t know how you became an orphan (you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to), but I want you to know that I’m not planning on leaving you, either by abandoning you (which I would never do anyway) or by death. I promise that I will try my best to stay by your side no matter what happens as long as you’ll let me because I love you and I don’t want to see you upset because of me. This is probably some crappy comforting, but I just wanted you to know that I’m not going anywhere. _

 

Keith almost started crying on the spot. These were words that Keith hadn’t heard in years. Throughout the twelve years he’d been in foster care, not once did someone tell him that they loved him. Everybody left eventually, and now his soulmate has just told him that he’s going to stand by his side for as long as he possibly can.

 

**Thank you.**

 

~

 

Keith wasn’t a fan of his new school.

 

It was bad enough that a few weeks earlier, Shiro went back to college. Now he was here. As he’d predicted, none of the people there seemed to be huge fans of him. He had no friends, and people he’d passed in the hallways would call him “loner” or “freak.” He noticed a lanky latino boy up against the lockers giving him a bit of a stink eye as he walked to his next class.

 

What he wouldn’t give to have his soulmate there with him.

 

~

 

_ I just realized that I’ve never asked you this and it is very important that I do so so I’m going to ask you now. What’s your favorite color? _

 

**Blue**

 

_ Mines red _

 

Keith froze as they both wrote down their answers at the same time. Then, he chuckled to himself. What a coincidence that very likely wasn’t an actual coincidence.

 

~

 

Keith was sitting in an empty hallway at his school, drawing a shark for Blue, when suddenly, some guy literally ran over him, knocking the journal out of his hand, then proceeded to face plant on the tile floor.

 

“ _ ¡Mierda! _ ” The guy spoke what Keith assumed was a Spanish curse, but he didn’t think much about it because he was to busy holding his dripping nose.

 

“Shit, I think my nose is bleeding,” he looked up at the guy who was staring at him with a mixture of confusion and annoyance.

 

“Why were you sitting in the middle of the hallway?” He questioned.

 

Seriously? You run him over then demand to know why he was in his way. “One, I’m not in the middle of the hallway, I’m sitting against my locker. Two, there is literally no one else here and you could have easily walked around me.”

 

The guy, Lance, he recognized from a few of his classes, scoffed. “Well, I’m sorry that I was busy.”

 

“Busy doing what?” Keith demanded.

 

“If you must know,” Lance said, sounding pretty snarky as he stood up off the ground, “I was watching my soulmate draw, and let me tell you-” He cut off for reasons Keith couldn’t place. He looked to Lance’s hands where, sure enough, he was holding a blue soulmate journal. Lance said something under his breath that he didn’t hear, so naturally, he asked.

 

“What was that?”

 

“Nothing,” Lance snapped. “I’m sorry I ran into you. Have a good evening or whatever.” Just like that, he turned around and practically ran out of the building.

 

That was weird.

 

Keith reached forward so he could pick his journal up from the ground and quickly scribbled an apology to Blue, who had likely been watching him draw. He liked to do that.

 

**Sorry I stopped drawing all of a sudden. Some asshole ran over me in the hallway.**

 

While he waited for Blue to respond, he quickly finished sketching the shark. By the time he’d finished, he noticed that Blue had written a note.

 

_ Wow, what a dick. _

 

Something was up. Blue  _ never _ used correct punctuation.

 

**Is something wrong? You only use correct punctuation when something’s up. You didn’t even use an emoji.**

 

_ Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine. I just have some things on my mind. _

 

**Like what?**

 

_ It’s nothing important. _

 

Lies.

 

Was Blue getting tired of him already? Things like this usually happened when someone was getting tired of him. What happened to the whole “I love you and I’ll never leave you” thing? Had it all been a lie.

 

No. Keith was probably just jumping to conclusions. Blue didn’t joke about that kind of stuff. Everything was fine.

 

Hopefully.

 

**Alright. Well, if you need to talk about it, I’ll be here.**

 

_ I know. _

 

He’s always there.

 

~

 

Monday came later than Keith had hoped. He had had a rough weekend. He’d spoken to Blue a few times over the weekend. However, he had to start the conversation every time, and Blue was always distant when he did. 

 

Was this really happening? Keith hadn’t realized how much he’d come to rely on Blue’s presence. Had he been lying when he said he wouldn’t leave him? He and Blue hadn’t even met and Blue was already tired of him. Figures.

 

He was sitting in front of his locker when someone, for the first time ever, approached him.

 

“Uh, hey, Keith.” Keith looked up to see Lance standing next to him awkwardly.

 

“Hi?” He greeted unsurely.

 

“Hi,” Lance repeated. Keith could imagine his mental kick.

 

“Why are you talking to me?” Keith asked, standing up. People don’t talk to Keith. That’s how Keith’s school experience has gone for the past twelve years.

 

“Well, I, uh,” Lance stuttered. Why was he so nervous? “I wanted to see if your nose was okay.”

 

“My nose is fine, Lance,” Keith assured him. “There were only a few drops.”

 

“That’s good,” Lance said. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry I ran into you.”

 

“It’s fine, Lance,” Keith said, and it was true. Keith had been too worried about Blue over the weekend to hold a grudge against Lance. “It was an accident. I only slightly blew up on you because you knocked my journal out of my hand while I was drawing.”

 

“Yes,” Lance simply stated. “I wanted to talk to you about that.”

 

“Why?” Keith questioned. Seriously. Why? People don’t talk to Keith. Keith doesn’t talk to people. Why did Lance want to talk to him when he had two other friends he could be talking to instead?

 

“Here,” Lance said, pulling the blue journal Keith had seen Friday out of his bag and handing it to him. “I want you to read this.”

 

“Isn’t that private?” Keith asked, taking it. He knew he wouldn’t let anyone else read his journal. Not even Shiro. Matt may have read a bit when he stole his, but that wasn’t Keith letting him.

“Yeah, but I still want you to read it,” Lance told him.

 

“Okay, then,” Keith said, giving in. “If you insist.”

 

He opened the journal to the first page and started reading.

 

_ Hello, soulmate. The name’s Blue. _

 

Why did that look so familiar?

 

_ Okay, soulmate. So you either haven’t turned thirteen yet or you’re ignoring me. I really hope it’s not the ladder. That would suck. _

 

The color of the writing was eerily familiar, too. Everything about Lance’s soulmate journal was familiar to him. He kept reading writing after writing, all in the same familiar blue pen. A few pages in, a new shade of pen with a new handwriting showed up, and all the pieces fell into place.

 

**Hey, Blue. I’m Red.**

 

Oh.

 

“Oh,” Keith said aloud, looking up to see Lance looking at him with a wide-eyed and nervous expression. Lance, his soulmate.

 

His soulmate.

 

Blue was standing right in front of him.

 

Without meaning to, Keith felt a smile grow on his face and he let out a small laugh. The small laugh grew until it was a full laugh of relief and happiness. Now he knew. Now he knew why Blue had been distant.

 

“Keith?” Lance said, confused.

 

“You were here all along,” Keith managed to get out.

 

Lance’s nerves appeared to clear some. “Yeah,” he breathed. “I’m here.”

 

In a moment of impulse, both boys surged forward to pull the other into his arms. Both were laughing as they tightly held their soulmate. “I, I,” Keith stuttered, “I thought you’d gotten tired of me.”

 

At that, Lance pulled away to look at him. “What?”

 

Keith looked away from Lance, refusing to make any eye contact. “You were distant this weekend. I thought you didn’t want to be with me anymore or something.”

 

Lance’s face was suddenly filled with panic. “No, no, no, nonononononono,” he said. “Keith, I would never leave you without reason. I love you too much to do that to you.”

 

Lance loved him. Keith had seen the words written within the pages of his journal several times before, but it was a completely different thing. Keith hadn’t heard those words be said to him in years.

 

“I- I love you, too, Lance,” he smiled with the words. Now that he’d met his soulmate in person, he felt that he was ready to come to terms with the truth. In two short years, he’d fallen in love with his soulmate, Lance McClain.

 

~

 

“I found it!” Lance declared, walking into the room with his daughter’s soulmate journal hidden behind his back.

 

The entire family had gathered in the living room so he and Keith could give their youngest her journal. They’d given their twin sons their blue and red journals only two short years earlier, and now it was time to give their daughter hers.

 

“Can I have it now?” their daughter, Violet, asked. She’d been waiting all day to get her hands on the journal. She was just as excitable as her father.

 

“No, wait,” Lance said. “Let me have this.” He turned to Keith. “Got the camera, sweetheart?”

 

Keith looked up from his phone, which he’d been holding in the same place for ages. “The video is already twelve minutes long, honey. Just give her the journal.”

 

His husband groaned. “Fine,” he pulled out the journal from behind his back and handed it to his daughter. “Here you go, pumpkin.”

 

Violet grinned as she took the journal from her father. Before either man knew what was happening, their daughter had them both in her arms, excitedly thanking them for her journal and sprinting upstairs, likely to put her first note in her purple journal.

 

Lance looked to where his daughter had disappeared before sitting on the couch and putting his arm around his husband. “I did the same thing when I got my journal,” he commented.

 

“I didn’t,” Keith said bluntly.

 

Lance wore an expression of mock despair. “You wound me, Red.”

 

Keith chuckled before planting a quick kiss on his husband’s lips. “I’ll make it up to you later, Blue.” Lance raised his eyebrows with a smirk. “Not like that,” Keith said.

 

“You love me,” Lance said, kissing his soulmate’s cheek.

 

“Yeah,” Keith said. “I do.”

 

~

 

_ Hello, soulmate. The name’s Purple. _

 

**Hey, Purple. I’m Green.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end, my friends!
> 
> Sorry if it felt a bit rushed. It is very late right now, but I tried to give you guys the best ending possible.
> 
> Thanks for reading and have a good rest of your day (or night)!

**Author's Note:**

> Lance is an awkward boy who uses stupid emojis and you cannot change my mind.
> 
> Keith's POV will be out at a time probably within the next week bc I seriously need to write my history essay.
> 
> Have a good rest of your day (or night)!


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